11-30-09...Monday back to reality.

"Every wall is a door"

Emerson

Every wall is a door? Bet a lot of us have the feeling we have ran right into a wall with Thanksgiving being over and Christmas fast approaching. The site that Sharilyn sent with the "letter to the saboteur's is priceless, and I immediately thought of you ladies that work in offices and those of you that are school teachers where the children's Mother's are always bringing something ''just for you." If you have not had a chance to read the letter, it is worth the time. So now back to the ''Wall & the door." Brick wall's these past two months, we had Halloween, we have just finished up Thanksgiving, and now Christmas is the next one we have to deal with, but actually we have to begin dealing with that one, this very minute. It is true, people will be bringing in goodies to the office, some of your neighbor's will no doubt be bringing treats to your door. It's great if you have people in your house that can and will eat those things that get us in trouble up quickly, but if at your house you have only a husband that eats very little, then just throw the stuff out. No, I am not a advocate of wasting food, but if I cannot give it away to someone else, then it is best for me to throw the stuff out, and in doing that I am watching out for me.

Watching our for ourselves, is what we should be doing everyday. People think when they bring over that big pan of homemade fudge, they are being a good neighbor, and it has taken me years to break my neighbor's of bringing food items to our home. All my neighbor's met me when I was 327 pounds, so they knew I had a weight problem and struggled with food. It never failed, I'd be ''dieting'' doing good and here comes the little old ladies with their plates of cookies. Always, ''I thought Bob would enjoy these." Poor Bob was lucky to get one cookie, oh the perils of living with a food addict. However, after joining Weight Watchers, and losing my first 50 pounds, here came one of our little neighbor ladies with a plate of goodies, I stopped her right at the door, and told her this, ''Miss Mary, Bob and I do appreciate your kindness, but I just cannot have this in my home anymore." Of course I got the same old, ''just a little bit won't hurt." That is the problem, there is no ''just a little bit, it is either all or nothing." So I finally had to put my foot down and ask this question of my neighbor's.....''if I had lung cancer would you be bringing me packs of cigarettes?" I am fine with you liking me well enough to bring me something, but bring me something that is not eatable. Now Miss Mary passed away a couple of years ago, but I have finally gotten through to my other neighbor's that want to shower Bob and I with kindness. The other day Carl came over, and he was the one always bringing Danish, now he brings pot holders, a little flashlight, maybe a book he has read. So my wall was my neighbor's my door was my voice. It is alright for us to tell people we cannot handle all that food being brought in, it is our right and duty to take a stand for our health.

Then again when things like all the holiday goodies are being brought in, I have to ask myself, ''do I really and truly want to say NO, or am I just talking the talk, but not walking the walk?" Trust me, I fall into both categories. From time to time we have suggested, if your having a hard time, call a friend. As a rule that friend does not get called until the damage has been done. So I ask myself, ''did I really want to resist?" For me if I did not walk away, or make that call or do whatever to get out of the food situation, then no, I did not want to resist.

We are going to find many wall's these next few weeks, the trick is to find the door, then the key to unlock that door so we can pass through.

11-29-09.....Sunday

"Another Sunrise, another new Beginning."

Huie

We are on our last leg of the Bermuda Triangle, and today I begin (yet again) the sugar withdrawal. Getting off all that sweet stuff. Someone told me ''it takes three days for the sugar to get out of your system", then it take three weeks to form a new habit....for me that new habit will be not consuming sugar. I just feel so much better when the sweets I consume are in the form of fruits or a sweet potato. Tomorrow I will also get started back at the gym. I took all last week off, but I still came in with 19 activity points for the week, but normally I will have around 35-40 activity points for the week when I go to the gym. So getting myself back to basics.

Let's do a little looking back this morning. I know, I'm always saying, ''don't look back", but this time it's okay to look back, cause I want us to look back to where we were before we joined the Saturday morning Weight Watchers group. Some of you may have been already in a good place with your weight, but for those of us that were not, let's look back to how our lives have changed. You can either share your change with the group or just write them down for yourself, something to refer to these next few weeks when things seem to be getting out of control.

I paid attention to something our Christiane (newest Lifetimer) said yesterday about ''she ate all day Thanksgiving day, she ate sliced up cucumbers, the yellow and red peppers, she grazed, but it was on all healthy green diamond foods. So yesterday I stopped at Paul's got me a English cucumber, some cherry tomatoes, and that was my noshing for yesterday. On one of those noshing's I even added 17 slices of turkey pepperoni, and yes, I counted it out, so I had a 2 points snack and my cucumbers and cherry tomatoes were zero points. It's amazing at how quickly that can fill you up.

Also remember if you don't have a hot air popcorn popper, then pop that popcorn in a brown paper bag. I have to admit, doing it that way just has a fresher flavor.

The next few weeks are going to be tough, but we can get through them. The good news is we are heading into the last leg of our journey in the holiday Bermuda Triangle. The holiday's are hard on my eating, way too much fat, sugar and salt out there, (F.S.S.) the three ingredients that I love the best. But, I don't want to go back to where I was this time last year and that was 215 pounds. So tracking, and that went by the wayside the last couple of weeks, exercise, getting back to the gym, and taking some time for myself. Those are the things I chose to work on this week.

The day after....11-27-09

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We sure did. We were fortunate enough to have Bob's youngest Grandson and his wife with us. Kevin brought out his web cam and hooked it up to our TV so we were able to talk and see Robin and Lynda in California, almost as good as if they were here.

Way too much food, it was all good, and I did really good with the food, it was the dessert that got me. Even though I had very small portions, it was just way too much sugar for my body, and I was one sick woman last night.

Today, I have been doing laundry, decorating the inside of the house, and mainly going to just take it easy today and prepare for tomorrow's weigh-in which I do not expect it to be pretty.

11-24-09....Tuesday

"How ironic that all that comfort food ended up making me feel uncomfortable."

From Dottie's newsletter

Okay, what a day yesterday was, certainly hope today goes a bit better. I say that when in reality the only major screw-up was Travis putting down in his appointment book that he was to clean carpet today instead of yesterday. So not only did I get to move the furniture yesterday, but I get to do it again today.....on the bright side.....activity points.

Love the quote this morning, and how true that is. Chocolate is comfort food, but then it breaks my face out. Yeah, I know they say chocolate does not do that, but it does, it also makes my heart palpitate. Bread fresh from the oven....no I don't bake bread, but if I did, look out, then we have the mashed potatoes, all that stuff that we call comfort foods. For everyone it is going to be something different. Comfort foods can be modified where the points value is not so bad, but then do we still consider that ''comfort" food? To me comfort food is whatever it was that our Mom's and Grandmother's made and gave us when we were sad. Homemade cookies, candy, cakes, anything with fat, sugar and salt.

Now I know for myself, that I feel so much better when I am working the program, eating lighter, tracking points, doing all those things that we know are good for us. So why on earth do we allow ourselves that misery of being bloated, being laid out on the couch like a beached whale. Answer:Cause it taste so good! Yep, that simple.

So not only this week, but we have a few more weeks being in the Bermuda Triangle area, so time to put on our Armour, get with our anchor's and hold on tight. The sea of holiday eating is only going to get worse.

Last one.

Martha Stewart would be so proud, lol lol.

McAdams Christmas decorations.

Our front porch decorated.

I got the front porch decorated over the weekend. I had planned to wait and do this on Friday after Thanksgiving, but the weather was just too nice to risk not going ahead and getting it done.